1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the technique for storing an electrophoresis medium in a capillary electrophoresis apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since the capillary electrophoresis apparatus have a high heat dissipation capacity so as to apply a high voltage compared with the slab gel electrophoresis apparatus conventionally used, they have the advantage of a high speed electrophoresis. Therefore, the capillary electrophoresis apparatus have been utilized for various separation analysis measurement such as the analysis of DNA and proteins.
Many of the capillary electrophoresis apparatus recently used have a mechanism for automatically replacing the polymers as the separation media. The DNA sequencers commercially available as Prism 310, 3100, 3730 (product name) from Applied Biosystems, U. S. A. automatically fill the capillary with the polymer using a syringe and a pump.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-242140
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-281221
In the capillary electrophoresis apparatus, an extremely expensive polymer is used as the separation medium. The polymer is stored in general in a polymer bottle. A tube for pumping up the polymer into a pump extends up to the bottom of the polymer bottle so that the polymer at the bottom in the polymer bottle is used first and the polymer in the vicinity of the surface remains until the end. However, since the surface of the polymer is exposed to the air, the polymer in the vicinity of the surface is denatured or deteriorated.
The present inventor has found out that the polymer remaining until the end in the polymer bottle is denatured or deteriorated so that the efficient use of the polymer is prevented.